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Sep 14, 2012

Regarded as the founder of Czech musical nationalism, Smetana was one of the first composers to integrate folk-based material from his native country into his compositions. The son of an innkeeper who was an amateur violinist, he began playing in a string quartet at age five, and produced his first symphony at age eight.

Like many 19th-century operas, The Bartered Bride centres on an arranged marriage. (The original Czech title can be literally translated as 'The Sold Bride' or 'The Purchased Fiancée.') Set in a Bohemian village, it tells the story of a young girl, Marenka, who is in love with Jenik. However, she has been betrothed against her wishes to the son of Micha, a local landlord. Unknown to everyone but himself, Jenik is in fact none other than Micha’s long lost eldest son. Jenik shrewdly persuades the marriage broker to state that Marenka should be married to the eldest son of Micha. When it is revealed that it is none other than Jenik, all ends happily.

The work begins with a theme bursting with rhythmic energy. After this has been presented fugally, a sudden crescendo ushers in the second subject, which has the flavour of a Czech dance tune. Both themes are explored in a short development section, which is followed by the conventional recapitulation. At the end, an unexpected, wistful passage revisits the second theme before the overture reaches its brilliant conclusion.

Overtures to operas are usually written almost as afterthoughts, but Smetana was so taken with the story that he wrote the lively prelude before beginning any other work on the opera. The result is a piece that stands alone beautifully, yet still serves as a wonderful introduction to the work that made Smetana famous. The first production opened in Prague on May 30, 1866, though an early version of the overture, for piano four hands, may have been performed some three years earlier.

I don't know enough about Higgs Boson to rule out the notion that using some ping pong balls, a bag of sugar and a tray from the work canteen isn't a painfully obvious way of explaining it. But certainly a few commenters online were quick to question the striking similarities between the BBC and Guardiandemonstrations.

Updated: The BBC has now added a line crediting The Guardian and Ian Sample:

Jul 04, 2012

More than 50 years ago Peter Higgs and five other theoretical physicists proposed that an invisible field lying across the Universe gives particles their mass, allowing them to clump together to form stars and planets.

According to Prof Higgs's 1964 theory, the field interacts with the tiny particles that make up atoms, and weighs them down so that they do not simply whizz around space at the speed of light.

But in the half-century following the theory, produced independently by the six scientists within a few months of each other, nobody has been able to prove that the Higgs Field really exists.

That's where the so-called "God Particle" comes in. Prof Higgs predicted that the field would have a signature particle, a massive boson. Finding it would point towards the existence of the field.

Jun 23, 2012

Thanks to my obsession with watching vbs.tv at night, hoping to find new episode of Vice Guide to Travel – I stumbled across a mini documentary called Thorium Dream. Nothing has stimulated my “nerd endings” in quite some time as this little documentary did.

Mar 13, 2012

Ceramic artist Pamela Mei Yee Leung discusses her influences, from Chinese mythology to European folk art. In one of her last interviews before her death in October 2011 after an 11-year battle with cancer, she reflects on how her work has formed a diary of her struggle with the disease.

Mar 10, 2012

Ault, who was 19 at the time and visiting from southern California, attended the launch with his parents, Bernice and Robert, and his friend Bill Graber. He filmed the event with his Chinon Super 8 film camera while Graber snapped photos.

Like many home movies, the film sat untouched in a box in Ault's house for decades. Until last week, it had been 26 years since he had seen the film, which The Huffington Post licensed from Ault.

Feb 23, 2012

We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night - but it could be good for you. A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.

Oct 31, 2011

Uploaded by tate on Oct 20, 2011 Painter George Shaw is one of the nominees for the Turner Prize 2011. For almost two decades his subject matter has been the place in which he grew up, a housing estate in Coventry and the surrounding streets. Every detail is scrupulously captured in Humbrol enamel paint, the kind of paint used by children on Airfix model kits.

Shaw's paintings are full of nostalgia for a lost childhood and exude a sense of time passing. More recently he has focused on the grim urban decay that is slowly infecting the local area.

The Turner Prize is a contemporary art award that was set up in 1984 to celebrate new developments in contemporary art. The prize is awarded each year to 'a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding'.

Published on Oct 28, 2011 by TheGuardian With sculptures by Angela de la Cruz, paintings by Dexter Dalwood, video from the Otolith Group and sound art from Susan Philipsz, this is one of the most diverse Turner prize shows for years. The Guardian's art critic Adrian Searle finds there's much to like about this year's exhibition, and offers his tip for the winning entry.